Supper for us all. Halasaa looked at Heben’ s astonished face and smiled his slow wide smile, but it was Mica who laughed on his behalf.
After they had pitched camp and eaten, Calwyn wrapped herself in her cloak and walked through the dusk back up the path to a place where she could see the Palace of Cobwebs clearly. As near as this, she could make out some of the intricate, lace-like patterns carved into the white stone walls. But no, they didn’ t look carved; it was as though the Palace had somehow grown into being, a tangled mesh of silk and gossamer, light enough to blow away at a puff of wind, so delicate and fine that it seemed to shimmer and billow in the air.
The light of the setting sun stained the white walls in more colours than Calwyn could have imagined: deep and bloody reds, rich mauves and purples, blue and grey, pale as winter clouds, a bright flare of yellow, then rosy pink like the cheek of a sleeping baby. And as the colours of the Palace shifted, one blending into the next, so the sky behind it changed, flaring and fading, blue into purple into deepest indigo, then black. Then the stars and the three moons shone out, and the Palace was cold and sparkling against the black velvet of the night.
‘In the morning,’ said Heben behind her, ‘you will see it gold and white and blue.’
‘It’ s truly a marvel,’ said Calwyn. ‘I never thought I’ d see such a thing built by human hands. It’ s a most exquisite sight.’ ‘Wait until you’ ve seen the walls up close. The carvings are so fine, so delicate, they could make you weep.’
‘And the people who dwell inside the walls?’ Suddenly Calwyn felt nervous. It was not fear of the danger that lay ahead, though she felt that too; this was the same shy awkwardness that she’ d felt before the village boys of Antaris. Tomorrow she would bind Heben’ s medallion to her brow, and put on the robes they’ d bought in Teril, and they would enter the Imperial Court of Merithuros. She would pretend to be an aristocratic lady, even though she did not know how to speak, or how to dress, or how to hold her spoon. She could not dance, nor flirt, nor play at dice.
Heben flashed her a grin, the first unforced, whole-hearted smile he’ d given since they’ d met.
‘Oh, have no fear,’ he assured her. ‘The courtiers will make you weep more than the carvings.’
Calwyn smiled back at him weakly, and then they were both silent, gazing at the silver confection, and thinking their own thoughts, until at last they turned and made their way back to the camp.
DARROW 2
Pleased with himself, Trout stood back and wiped his lenses on the tail of his shirt. The bridge was coming along nicely; within the next day or two, the ends of the archway would meet above the stream. This bridge would stand for hundreds of years, he thought with satisfaction. Even after the stream itself had changed course, this bridge would still be here. Trout’ s Bridge, they’ d call it, long after everyone had forgotten who Trout had been –
A shout from below made him jam his lenses back onto his nose. He frowned. Fresca was coming up from the village, waving furiously. Surely it couldn’ t be time for lunch already? Fresca shouted something. A few steps nearer and he could make out the words.
‘Trout! He’ s back, Darrow’ s back!’
Trout flung down his trowel and hurried along the muddy path to the harbour, with Fresca at his heels. Even without a looking-tube, he recognised Heron’ s brown sail as it swayed to and fro across the mouth of the bay.
By the time Darrow’ s little boat reached the jetty, half the village was there to greet him, and the children jostled to catch the rope that he tossed out.
‘He went away to rest,’ Fresca murmured to Trout. ‘But he looks more tired than the day he left. Shoo, shoo, children!’ She strode forward, clapping her hands to clear a path for Darrow. ‘Let the poor lad be! Can’ t he have a breath to himself ?’
Darrow gave her a distracted smile, and he nodded to Trout, but his eyes travelled searchingly across the little crowd and swept up the hill. Trout knew who he was looking for, and so did Fresca. She laid a hand on his arm.
‘Come to my house,’ she said. ‘I’ ll warm you a cup of broth, and you can wash. Better than going up to that old hut of yours with no fire laid, and no welcome.’
Darrow hesitated, and Trout saw him glance swiftly to the cottage that Calwyn and Mica shared. He frowned at the fastened shutters, and the closed door, which the girls usually left flung open to weather and visitors alike.
‘They aren’ t there,’ said Trout. ‘They’ ve all gone off in Fledgewing.’
Darrow’ s face cleared. ‘Chasing pirates? So they’ ll be back tonight?’
‘No. Not tonight.’ Fresca hooked her hand beneath his elbow. ‘Come inside, and we’ ll tell you.’
Darrow kept his hands wrapped tightly around the bowl of soup while Trout told the story. Darrow said not a word to interrupt, and he didn’ t touch the broth until Trout was finished. His face was set like a mask; he looked more foreign than usual, Trout thought, and his grey-green eyes were unreadable.
He swung around and asked Fresca, ‘This Heben. What is he like?’
‘He’ s just a boy,’ said Fresca. ‘Trying to be brave like a man, but he’ s a little boy underneath it all.’
Darrow looked relieved, which puzzled Trout. Wouldn’ t Calwyn be safer with a man than with a half-grown boy? But Darrow had turned back to him. ‘And they have gone to the Black Palace? That’ s what they said?’
Trout frowned. That didn’ t sound quite right. ‘It was some Palace or other.’
‘But they have gone to find the chanter children?’
‘Oh, yes. Definitely.’
‘Then it must be the Black Palace.’
Fresca said, ‘Eat your broth before it’ s cold.’
Darrow put the spoon into the bowl, and left it there. Then he pushed back his stool and went to stare out the window.
‘If only she had waited,’ he said under his breath. ‘She doesn’ t know what she’ s facing. The Black Palace, by herself! She thinks she is equal to anything. And Tonno is worse. I told him to take care of her. I told him –’ Abruptly he turned, as if he’ d suddenly remembered that he wasn’ t alone. ‘Forgive me,’ he said. ‘I’ m used to thinking aloud, day after day on Heron, by myself.’
Fresca and Trout exchanged glances. ‘Don’ t mind me,’ said Trout uncomfortably.
‘I didn’ t hear a word,’ said Fresca, unperturbed. ‘My hearing’ s not what it was before the slavers came. Come back and eat your soup, Darrow, for the sake of Si’ leth! You look as if you need some good food and some comfort.’
Darrow’ s face closed as he returned to the table. It was true, he had come back to Ravamey in search of comfort, but he’ d expected to find it in Calwyn’ s cottage, not here. In Calwyn’ s bright eyes and the warmth of her smile, he’ d thought he might find the answers he sought, answers that months of solitude had failed to show him. He’ d pictured their meeting a hundred times as he sailed back to the island. Would she run down to the jetty?Would he surprise her in Halasaa’ s garden, or by the hives, with that absurd straw hat falling over her eyes? Or would he knock at her door and see the light come shining into her eyes as she leapt up to greet him?
Moodily he spooned up the soup. Then he gave a grim little laugh. It was what he deserved, to come back and find her gone off on an adventure of her own. He had no right to expect that all her thoughts and her actions should revolve around him, that she would sit quietly by her hearth and wait for him to return. But he wished with all his soul that she hadn’ t chosen this particular quest. To venture into the heart of Merithuros, to the Black Palace, the secret stronghold of the chanters of iron: she had no idea what she would have to face. Even with Halasaa and the others to help her, he feared for her.
With a clatter he pushed away the empty bowl. ‘When did they leave?’
‘Let me think.’ Fresca leaned against the table. ‘It was when Big Fish Swallows Small Fish. The Fingernail and the Quartered Apple, Calwyn calls it.’
‘Tw
enty days ago,’ said Trout.
Darrow groaned. If only they had waited! He could have persuaded her not to go, or if that failed, he could have gone with her. But that chance was lost. There was only one thing to be done now. Perhaps this was his answer, after all . . .
‘I’ ll go after them,’ he said. ‘I have business in Merithuros in any case. Heron is not so fast as Fledgewing, but I know the deserts, and I can travel swiftly once I arrive. With luck, I might find them before they reach Hathara.’
‘ Tonno told me he’ d wait for them in Teril,’ volunteered Trout.
Darrow nodded. That was good; they could take Fledgewing round the coast together. ‘I’ ll leave tomorrow at dawn,’ he said.
Fresca looked at him in horror. ‘But Darrow, you’ ve only just arrived! You need to rest, you’ ll have to stock your boat. Wait a day or two at least, what difference can it make?’ But she knew, as she looked at his face, that no amount of argument would dissuade him. With a sigh, she began to bustle around. ‘Let me wash your clothes at least. Trout, fetch him something clean to wear, go on now. Darrow, you can lie down on that bed and sleep. You’ ll be no use to anyone without a good night’ s rest behind you.’
‘I would rather go up to my own hut.’
‘Rubbish! That cold, damp shack! No one’ s aired it out for a turn of the moons. You won’ t sleep there, you’ ll catch your death.’
‘No, he won’ t.’ Trout turned back to argue. ‘It’ s the middle of summer.’ Darrow gave the smallest of smiles.
‘I don’ t care. Get along, Trout! Darrow, you go and lie down on that bed. When Trout comes back, we’ ll see to your boat, we can get your supplies together. Go on now! I’ ve enough to do without chasing around after you.’ She scolded Darrow out of her kitchen as if he were one of her own children.
He allowed her to shoo him into the other room. After all, it would be pleasant to sleep on a feather bed after so many nights on Heron’ s hard planks. Fresca’ s bed was covered in a cheery patchwork quilt. Darrow sat down and tugged his boots off; it would be a shame to dirty that quilt with his muddy feet. . .
But he got no further before sleep overtook him, and when Fresca came in to fetch his clothes for washing, she found him sprawled across the bed, fully dressed and fast asleep.
Darrow woke in a lather of sweat. The covers were twisted around his neck, choking him, and he fought his way free with his heart hammering. The cool night air dashed against his face, and he gulped it in with relief.
For a moment he didn’ t know where he was. Moonlight streamed through Fresca’ s window. He wondered how many other people all overTremaris lay awake, staring at the moons. Some herders, perhaps; fisher-folk, waiting for the schools to rise. And the astronomers of the Black Palace, who slept by day and made their observations all night long. Was Calwyn awake somewhere in those deserts to the south, watching the moons? He thought of her long hair, the way it fell in a shimmering curtain to her waist, darkly glinting.
Darrow hunched the quilt over his shoulders, turned his face toward Merithuros, and tried to sleep.
Mouse has gone. The boy is older now, and when he is called anything, he is called by the name of the ship he was stolen from: at first Gold Arrow, then Darrow. When he came to this place, he dreamed every night that the captain and his mother and Arram and the other sailors would come storming over the dunes and take him away, back to the ship, back to his home. But that hope has faded slowly, and the boy’ s memories of his parents and the ship grow dimmer with every turn of the moons.
It’ s hard to measure the passing of the years, for the days are all alike, and there are no seasons in the Black Palace. The chanter children live day and night, year in and year out, within its dark walls; among themselves, they call it the Black Place. The sorcerers light the rooms with dim lanterns, continually refilled with oil by some complex mechanism that the children are not permitted to understand. Without sunlight, the children are as pale as ghosts, and the sorcerers are pale too, gliding about silently in their long black robes. The boy does not know which of the sorcerers stole him from his parents, so he hates them all, with an equal, secretive passion. There are one or two girls among the children, but all the sorcerers are men.
He understands now that Arram, the old sailor, was once one of these children. They steal them away to the middle of the desert and eat them up! It’ s true. He is being eaten up; day by day, a little more of him disappears.
The Black Palace has no visible doors, no gates or windows. When the sorcerers wish to leave or enter, they cut open a doorway in the smooth sheer walls with chantment, and seal it behind them. The boy has never forgotten his first sight of the huge black monolith, when he was carried here on the back of a hegesu with a band of other abducted children. The Palace rises on a plateau in the centre of the vast plain called the Dish of Hathara: a polished black cube, stark against the red dirt.
Inside, the cube is a succession of vast, empty rooms, mostly of polished black stone, relieved here and there with geometric patterns of dull red or bone white, to mark out a passageway or frame a door. The sorcerers’ robes whisper on the smooth floors. It’ s possible for the boy to tell where he is inside the cube by the temperature of the rooms. Near the surface, it is baking hot; in the depths, chillingly cold.
The sorcerers have their own way of keeping time. There is an enormous sand-clock at the foot of the central staircase, connected to a series of bells and hammers which strike out the quarters of the day. At sunrise, noon, sunset and midnight, the deep bells ring, up and down the spine of the staircase that links the many floors of the Palace.
The chanter children are told to be grateful. They are told they have been rescued from the dangerous, ignorant world outside. They are told, ‘There are no Clans here. We are all brothers.’ The children are forbidden to speak of their homes or their Clans, but stubbornly, children of the same Clan affiliation seek out one another and cluster together. Children from the same province eat at the same table, sleep in the same dormitory, lend washcloths and blankets and hand down clothes to one another. The boy has no Clan. He eats and sleeps alone, and rarely speaks. At first he finds it difficult to understand what the sorcerers and the children say. That passes, but when he speaks, he has an accent different from theirs, and they mock him. He finds it simpler to be silent.
He is always hungry. The children and the sorcerers eat the same monotonous diet: tasteless leaves, mushrooms, soft hegesi cheese. There are arid gardens on the plateau all around the Palace, and flocks of hegesi graze close to the monolith. One turn of the moons he spends outside the walls, helping to watch over the flock, milking and shearing.
One day during that time, he sees something among the arbec plants. Curious, he wanders over to investigate. It is a long, black-wrapped bundle, stretched on the red dirt. He turns it over with his foot, and then jumps back. A mummified skull grins up at him, and a skeletal hand dangles from the folds of a sorcerer’ s black cloak.
A voice sounds behind him. ‘We are not prisoners. We may leave if we wish.’ It is a young sorcerer, tall and very thin. His name is Amagis. The boy does not like him; he is cruel to the younger children. Amagis lifts the corpse’ s dry, fleshless hand, shakes it gruesomely at the boy, then lets it fall. He grins at the boy, without warmth. ‘Do you wish to leave?’
The boy shakes his head. He takes a step backward, and Amagis laughs.
The boy does not forget the mummified skull of the runaway, dried by the winds. But he also remembers Arram. Arram must have escaped. Others must have escaped too. But the boy is not a child of the deserts. He knows nothing of how to live in the barren lands. This is not his place. He could never survive.
But he dreams of his time with the hegesi for a long while after he is sealed in the Palace again. He dreams of the sun on his skin, the smell of the clean wind, the warm greasy wool under his hands. Another time, he takes his turn singing round the great millstone that grinds flour out of dune-grass seeds, for their b
read. He hopes that one day he might be sent to gather the dune-grass, and then he might see the ocean. But the sorcerers never assign him to that task.
No one knows when one of the sorcerers might swoop down like a vengeful crow and carry off a child for theTesting. It might be in the middle of a meal, or halfway through a lesson. Sometimes a child vanishes from his bed. Those who have passed never speak of it. Nor do those who fail: they disappear. The girls always disappear; they always fail. Like the dead, the ones who disappear are not spoken of. But unlike the dead, the names of the disappeared are never mentioned again, even after the moons emerge from darkness. It is as if the unlucky ones had never existed. The boy works feverishly at his studies. He knows he is in the first rank of the chanter children, but still he lives in terror, as they all do, of failure in the Testing.
The boy still carries the carved mouse in his pocket. Occasionally he takes it out and turns it over in his hands, but he never makes it dance or twitch its nose any more. In secret, he has made himself a tiny knife, which he also keeps in his pocket, and from time to time he steals a wooden plate from the dining hall. He sits by himself and carves. It is an eccentric habit; if he wished, he could carve without the knife, and a hundred times quicker, but the subtle movements of the knife comfort him, and in the act of carving he keeps alive the memory of the sailors who carved toys for a little boy, long ago. He makes tiny wooden fish, and boats, and sea birds. When they’ re finished, he hides them around the Palace. It gives him a sense of power to know that his carvings lurk in unsuspected corners, safe from the sorcerers’ eyes, tucked in a nook behind a lantern, or pushed into a crack under the stairs.
One day, between the end of lessons and the evening meal, he sits in a cold corner, absorbed with the scratchings and gougings of his little knife. Something makes him shiver, and he looks up to see black robes looming over him. He jumps up, expecting to be punished. But the sorcerer ignores the knife. He is a grim man with darting eyes and very long arms and legs; the children call him The Spider. He gestures to the boy to follow. The boy feels a shiver of fear that runs from the top of his head to the soles of his feet. This is the Testing.
The Waterless Sea Page 7
